The Danish Energy Agency (DEA) and the Embassy of Denmark to China hosted an offshore wind workshop in Beijing on 9 March, as part of the Sino-Danish Offshore Wind Cooperation (Quality Offshore project) that aims to assist Chinese developers and the Chinese government in their efforts to create a viable offshore wind industry.
The workshop, which saw more than 65 participants, focused on both regulation and improving the conditions for investments in the industry which is about to take off. It gathered a number of Chinese central and provincial authorities, as well as engineering institutions and developers. From Denmark, several representatives from developers, supply chain companies and consultants participated.
The cooperation between the two countries is one of the outcomes of the visit to Denmark of China’s National Energy Administration (NEA) Administrator Nur Bekri in September 2017. During his meetings with the Danish Minister for Energy, Utilities and Climate, the ministers agreed to initiate cooperation within offshore wind with an aim to exchange experience on regulatory matters, test and certification as well as look at opportunities for demonstrations projects.
On the Danish side, the Quality Offshore project is carried out in a close cooperation between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Danish Embassy in Beijing and the Danish Energy Agency with the latter as project lead. The project runs for one year with a possibility for extension.
China has a long coastline of some 13,000 kilometres and estimates say that technical potential for offshore wind is around 500GW, including water depths below 50 meters, according to DEA, who added that up to now offshore wind development in China has relied mostly on domestic know-how and experience, while foreign advisers and inputs have been limited.
China and Denmark started government-to-government collaboration on energy in 2006. Since then a long range of activities within renewable energy, scenario planning, power system flexibility, energy efficiency etc. have been carried out in an ever closer relationship between the two countries. In 2011, Denmark supported the creation of China National Renewable Energy Center in Beijing, which has established itself as a key think tank for China’s transition to a green energy system, according to DEA.